Actors’ Theatre of Columbus ends its season on a high note with a taut, edgy production of Romeo and Juliet at Columbus Commons.

The show runs almost three hours but moves so swiftly toward its inevitable tragic end that time seems irrelevant.

Director Ross Shirley has staged the play — performed in two acts — in a run-down, vaguely futuristic world where street fighting is the typical means of solving problems and universal anxiety combines with hasty tempers to make for bad decisions.

Columbus Commons doesn’t have the intimacy of Schiller Park in German Village, where three of the company’s five plays were performed this summer, but it has fewer distractions.

Shirley stages the action with a muscular theatricality that makes it easy to see the characters’ intense reactions, and the many fight scenes — choreographed by Jason Speicher and often backed by techno music — take advantage of the raised stage.

Not that Shirley neglects the language of the play: Although the actors speak rapidly and dynamically, every word of the dialogue comes through clearly — for which both the actors and the excellent sound system deserve credit.

The production plays up the contrast between the impulsive adolescents at its heart and the elders who have trouble keeping their own impulses in check.

Among the younger characters, Daniel Turek is a touchingly gawky Romeo, and Grace Bolander is a sweetly passionate Juliet. Josh Katawick is a refreshingly physical Mercutio, and Jordan Shear is an appealing Benvolio.

Standouts among the older characters include Jennifer Feather Youngblood as a feisty, life-loving Nurse; Edwyn Williams as Juliet’s patrician father; and Cate Blair-Wilhelm as a well-intentioned but weak Friar Lawrence.

Dayton Willison’s clever costumes hint at a world otherwise not described, in which unseen terrors might be shaping the character’s actions. They also establish the contrast between the Montagues, who wear outfits of camouflage and metal, and the Capulets, who wear down-at-the-heels versions of WASP attire.

Shane Cinal’s two-level set easily makes the transitions from dance hall to balcony to bedroom to tomb.

Even with all of the futuristic elements, the production respects the Shakespeare play — allowing it to speak with a contemporary accent without straying too far from its essence.